Better late than never for Stewart

PEPSI 400

Tony Stewart set a race record for the most laps led while capturing his first Cup victory at Daytona.

July 4, 2005|By Ed Hinton, Sentinel Staff Writer

DAYTONA BEACH -- This thrilled, this long after midnight, Tony Stewart wanted to do a lot more than just shake, jump and shout.

It was 1:45 a.m. on Sunday, last call in the bars, but Stewart was still on the racetrack, more than just victorious in the rain-delayed Pepsi 400.

He had dominated this race like no other driver ever has, leading 151 of the 160 laps to break Cale Yarborough's record of 142 in 1968.

Back then, they started the 400 at 10 a.m. to beat precisely the kind of afternoon and evening thunderstorms that delayed Saturday night's start for more than two hours.

No burnout, no doughnut, no mere climbing of the safety fence would do for this, the most exhilaration Stewart, 34, ever has shown publicly.

So he parked his Chevrolet at the start-finish line, climbed out, scaled the fence and kept on going, over the top and right onto the flagman's stand. There, still helmeted, he thrust his arms skyward, acknowledging the cheers of the 125,000 or so who'd stayed so late at Daytona International Speedway, even though he'd made the race a one-man show. It was his first Nextel Cup victory in 14 starts at Daytona.

"I'm way too old and too fat to be doing that," Stewart said after climbing back down the fence and calming down a bit. "But once I started, I was committed, and I wasn't going to let the fans down . . . I think I'm unofficially the first guy that's gone all the way to the top [of the fence] and over, and onto the flagstand.

"So [Helio] Castroneves has some work to do now," he said of his old friend from his IndyCar days who got the nickname Spiderman from climbing the fence after Indianapolis 500 victories.

Rather than bother him, the late hour made him even happier.

"I'm an old sprint car and midget racer, man. We're loading up our cars and heading for Waffle House or Denny's or the car wash this time of night. It doesn't bother me to race this late. I wish we did it every week."

Even with his second consecutive win on the Nextel Cup tour, Stewart had no hope of having a car quite like this one every week.

"Nobody but me is ever going to know how good that race car really was," he said. "This was a night that won't happen [again] for a very, very, very long time."

He'd known from the first green flag, which finally flew at 11 p.m. after the race started under caution at 10:38 p.m. so that the 43-car field could put the finishing touches on drying the track. Starting on the pole, he was counted as the leader during the first 11 laps, under yellow.

From the first full green at 11 o'clock to the checkered flag at 1:42 a.m., he doubted his car's superiority "not at all, to be honest."

"Once we took off and ran that first segment, I felt like if anybody could make a charge, they'd have done it in that first run. And nobody could even mount a charge on us."

The more Stewart settled down, on past 2 a.m., the more he realized and savored the perfection crew chief Greg Zipadelli and the team had engineered into the car.

"To have a car that good, to where I fought off every challenge, that's hard to do," he said. "I didn't have to change lanes to block guys like Jeff [Gordon] did in the Daytona 500 and at Talladega [in the first two restrictor-plate races of this season].

"I just ran my line and let them do what they were trying to do behind us to try to catch us.

"I guess that's why I was so emotional when I got out of the car and climbed the flagstand. You just don't have nights like this very often."

Jamie McMurray finished second and Dale Earnhardt Jr. third, but at the end, they were racing each other and were no threats to Stewart.

"[At best,] we had a car capable of finishing second," said Earnhardt, who equaled his best finish this season, in the Daytona 500, before falling into a terrible slump virtually everywhere on the tour but here.

Gordon, who'd won four of the past five restrictor-plate races going into Saturday night, was no threat at all this time.

He started 15th, fought a loose race car through the night and was relieved to wind up seventh.

Stewart, the 2002 Cup champion, was having a winless and miserable season himself until two weeks ago at Brooklyn, Mich., when he led the most laps but finished second. Then last Sunday, he won the road race at Sonoma, Calif., then won the pole here Friday night. But even then, Stewart said road racing and plate racing were "odd races" on a tour of mostly intermediate tracks.

His Michigan run on June 19 counted more to him as a gauge for resurgence this season.

"With the way we ran at Michigan, hopefully we can take some of those things to Chicago [the USG Sheetrock 400 at Chicagoland Speedway] next week and have a similar run," Stewart said. "We've had three great weeks . . . we just have to keep building on that momentum."